Several Hidalgo County cities, school districts hold elections Saturday

Voters are set to decide several races on Saturday which is election day for several municipal and school district races throughout Hidalgo County.

The cities of Mission, Palmview, Palmhurst, Mercedes, Elsa and Progreso Lakes; the school districts of Mission CISD, Edcouch-Elsa ISD, and Sharyland ISD; as well as South Texas College and the Engelman Irrigation District will be holding their elections on Saturday.

Residents will be electing candidates to several key positions within those entities including the top position of mayor for the cities of Mission, Palmview, Palmhurst, Elsa, and Progreso Lakes as well as city council members, city commissioners and aldermen for those cities.

The election for the Edcouch-Elsa school district will be on a proposition to issue $26 million in bonds for the construction of new school buildings, the purchase of property for those buildings, the purchase of new school buses, and levy taxes to pay for the bonds.

Edcouch-Elsa Superintendent Greg Rodriguez previously told The Monitor that the measure would not raise property taxes, despite the proposition’s language.

The Mission school district election will decide who will fill three positions on the school board as will the Sharyland school district election. The STC election will decide two positions on their board of trustees.

Several votes have already been cast during the early voting period of the elections which ran from April 25 through May 3.

A total of 17,033 ballots were cast early. That includes 14,958 votes cast in person and 2,075 absentee votes cast by mail.

The turnout this year was down from turnout for many of those same races in 2018.

For those elections four years ago, there were a total of 20,358 votes cast during the early voting period — 18,080 cast in person and 2,278 absentee votes.

Some of the differences this time around that could have contributed to the lower turnout are that entities like the city of Hidalgo, the Agua Special Utility District, and the Donna Irrigation District held elections in May 2018 but not this year.

However, there are also elections held this year that were not held in May 2018 such as the elections for Palmview, Palmhurst, Mercedes and Progreso Lakes.

Those who haven’t voted have a final opportunity to do so at one of the 44 polling locations that will be open on Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.